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NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has long maintained that the department’s controversial stop-and-frisk strategy does not target New Yorkers based on the color of their skin, despite the fact that in fifty-one percent of those stopped last year were black and 32 percent Hispanic. A federal trial challenging the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk is currently underway in federal court in Manhattan, and today a State Senator testified that Kelly once admitted to him that stop-and-frisk targeted blacks and Hispanics—and that the policy was intended to “instill fear.”

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What would you do if you logged in to your bank account someday and it showed that you had a zero balance and your bank had no record that you ever had any money in your account? What would you do if all of the money in your bank account suddenly disappeared in a single moment? If you had not kept any paper records, which most Americans do not, it would be exceedingly difficult to prove to the bank that you actually had any money in the bank. If you don’t think that something like this could ever happen in the United States, you might want to think again. Cyber attacks against major banks in the United States are becoming more powerful and more sophisticated with each passing month. In fact, major U.S. bank websites have been offline for a total of 249 hours over the past six weeks. And just last month, thousands upon thousands of Chase customers logged into their bank accounts only to discover that their balances had all been reset to zero.

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It used to be high school drop outs flipping burgers at McDonald’s, now the fast-food joint is demanding a bachelors degree. In a frightening example of how competitive the job market is for young people right now, a McDonald’s outpost in Winchedon, Massachusetts, has just posted a call-out for a full time cashier – but insists only college graduates need apply. And even they must have 1-2 years of cashier experience before they’ll be trusted with the Big-Mac-selling responsibility, according to the advert.

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Whether it was admitted or denied, a lot of Black Hollyweird is getting lighter for some reason and a lot of people suspect skin bleaching. Some can argue that celebrities are influenced to do it because of the better treatment lighter complexions receive in Hollywood for television, magazines, and better endorsements. However, we can all agree that these celebs have gotten a little lighter over the years and it ain’t just bad makeup. Hit the flip and peep for yourself, let us know which ones you think are bleaching!

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Early drug traffickers stashed their loads in obvious places: wheel wells, spare tires, the nooks of engine blocks. Starting in the early 1980s, however, they switched to what the Drug Enforcement Administration refers to as “urban traps”: medium-size compartments concealed behind electronically controlled facades. The first such stash spots were usually located in the doors of luxury sedans; trap makers, who are often moonlighting auto body specialists, would slice out the door panels and then attach them to the motors that raised and lowered the windows. They soon moved on to building traps in dashboards, seats, and roofs, with button-operated doors secured by magnetic locks. Over time, the magnets gave way to hydraulic cylinders, which made the doors harder to dislodge during police inspections.

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After receiving the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama has made perpetual war look more perpetual than ever. Today, there are more U.S. troops in Afghanistan than when Obama took office. His presidency has widened the use of drones and other instruments of remote killing in several countries. Please sign this petition to the Norwegian Nobel Committee:

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MBP, a procedure practiced by some ultra-Orthodox mohels, involves a mohel orally sucking away the blood from the infant’s genital area after cutting off his foreskin during the bris, or ritual circumcision. The practice can infect newborns with herpes simplex virus type 1, according to medical authorities. It’s a virus that, while not serious for adults, can be fatal for infants, or cause permanent cognitive or physical damage. Most mohels in this country use a sterile pipette for for suctioning the blood. But many ultra-Orthodox mohels consider direct suction of the genital area by mouth to be mandated by the Talmud as part of the religious rite.

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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has had a “no fly zone” in place in Mayflower, Arkansas since April 1 at 2:12 PM and will be in place “until further notice,” according to the FAA website and it’s being overseen by ExxonMobil itself. In other words, any media or independent observers who want to witness the tar sands spill disaster have to ask Exxon’s permission. Mayflower is the site of the recent major March 29 ExxonMobil Pegagus tar sands pipeline spill, which belched out an estimated 5,000 barrels of tar sands diluted bitumen (“dilbit”) into the small town’s neighborhoods, causing the evacuation of 22 homes.

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Tens of thousands of gallons of oil have flooded some of the streets and yards of Mayflower, Arkansas. The Exxon tar sands oil spill is small taste of what we would see if the Keystone XL Pipeline is approved. The media is largely being kept away from this spill. In the video you can see that Exxon’s plan to clean it up consists mostly of hoses and paper towels.

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A survey conducted by Public Policy Polling, labeled by many as a pro-Obama outfit, seems to be aimed at ascribing belief in “crazy conspiracy theories” to Republicans by mixing in real cover-ups and conspiracies with outlandish ideas. However, despite the constant media drumbeat about the clear move towards centralization of power being a baseless conspiracy theory, the poll reveals that 28 per cent of Americans believe that “a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order.” 46 per cent of respondents do not believe this notion, while 25 per cent are not sure. Good news! Maybe alternative media is getting through to people? And why shouldn’t they, they are bombarded with facts everyday backed up by the shady, secretive actions of their government and corporations. -Mort

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In 1991 a group of three researchers published a paper that described a method for casting a mold of the vagina using material more commonly used to make dental impressions. In short, liquid polymer goo is injected into a willing woman’s vagina with a kind of caulk gun. She waits ten minutes. Then with the help of KY, squatting and pushing, and the string from a tampon that was inserted before the material dried, the mold is removed. Though this paper included only two participants, a few years later the same researchers (plus a couple of others) published another study that examined vaginal molds of 39 women. In these women, all Caucasian, vaginal lengths ranged from almost 7 to almost 15 centimeters (2.75–6 in) with diameters between 2.4 and 6.5 cm (~1–2.5 in). A later study classified the diversity of vaginal shapes: conical, parallel sides, heart, slug, and pumpkin seed. (I can’t be the only one hoping that my vagina looks like a pumpkin seed instead of a slug.)

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When Geico gave the go-ahead on a new ad for motorcycle insurance set to the iconic Midnight Rider by the Allman Brothers, we’re guessing the company didn’t realize band members Duane Allman and Berry Oakley both died in motorcycle accidents within a year of one another. The deaths are the stuff of rock and roll legend, as both Oakley and Allman perished in crashes in Macon, Georgia within a block of one another back in the early ’70s.

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An ancient statue of Mars has lost its fake penis and his counterpart Venus her hands, in the reversal of cosmetic changes ordered by Italy’s ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, a newspaper reported Wednesday. In 2010 Berlusconi decided the two marble statues adorning the official residence of the prime minister were “incomplete” and ordered a swift intervention to remedy their shortcomings. In a move which horrified the art world, Mars was touched up with a fake penis, shield, hand and the point of his sword and Venus her two hands.

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A hunger strike at the US prison camp at Guantanamo has grown to include 130 of the 166 inmates, according to the lawyer for one of the prisoners. Clive Stafford Smith says he has been told by his client Shaker Aamer that camp officials have been trying to break the hunger strike without success. The US Defense Department said just under 40 prisoners are refusing food and 11 are being force fed after the latest hunger strike started seven weeks ago. Concerned by events there, the International Committee of the Red Cross recently brought forward a scheduled visit to the camp by a doctor. The ICRC does not comment publicly on its findings at the camp.

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The earth will shudder with earthquakes, and every bond and fetter will burst, freeing the terrible wolf Fenrir. The sea will rear up because Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent, is twisting and writhing in fury as he makes his way toward the land. With every breath, Jormungand will stain the soil and the sky with his poison. The waves caused by the serpent’s emerging will set free the ship Naglfar, and with the giant Hymir as their commander, the giants will sail towards the battlefield. From the realm of the dead a second ship will set sail, and this ship carries the inhabitants of hell, with Loki as their helmsman. The fire giants, led by the giant Surt, will leave Muspell in the south to join against the gods. Surt, carrying a sword that blazes like the sun itself, will scorch the earth.

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THE EXPERIMENT There are no meats, fruits, vegetables, or breads here. Besides olive oil for fatty acids and table salt for sodium and chloride nothing is recognizable as food. I researched every substance the body needs to survive, plus a few extras shown to be beneficial, and purchased all of them in nearly raw chemical form from a variety of sources. The section on the ingredients ended up being quite long so I’ll save that for a future post. The first morning my kitchen looked more like a chemistry lab than a cookery, but I eventually ended up with an thick, odorless, beige liquid. I call it ‘Soylent’. At the time I didn’t know if it was going to kill me or give me superpowers. I held my nose and tepidly lifted it to my mouth, expecting an awful taste.

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It’s not just Twitter. It’s broader than that. Within the verbal, well-educated, politically conscious social group that most bloggers belong to, we’ve always been expected to keep up with things. The problem is that “keeping up” increasingly means being surrounded by an endless torrent of tweets, texts, blogs, and Tumblrs demanding our attention. With traditional physical forms of news consumption no longer acting as natural limits, the risk of relapse into obsession is never more than a ringtone away, with nothing but raw self discipline as our last line of defense. Modern social norms don’t allow us to turn this stuff off completely, but for those of us who are vulnerable to this kind of addiction, ever advancing technology conspires to turn us into nervous wrecks if we don’t.

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Some people are into spelunking through the urban ruins and crevasses of unfamiliar cities. The National Counterterrorism Center has a term for these sorts of people: terrorist dupes. “Urban Explorers (UE) — hobbyists who seek illicit access to transportation and industrial facilities in urban areas — frequently post photographs, video footage, and diagrams on line [sic] that could be used by terrorists to remotely identify and surveil potential targets,” warns the nation’s premiere all-source center for counterterrorism analysis.

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Kowloon Walled City, located not far from the former Kai Tak Airport, was a remarkable high-rise squatter camp that by the 1980s had 50,000 residents. A historical accident of colonial Hong Kong, it existed in a lawless vacuum until it became an embarrassment for Britain. This month marks the 20th anniversary of its demolition.

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“Replying to questions posted on Facebook by The New York Times, Daylina Miller, a recent graduate of the University of South Florida, said that when she poured out her sadness online, some readers responded only with the Facebook ‘like’ symbol: a thumb’s up. ‘You feel the same way?’ said Ms. Miller, puzzled. ‘Or you like that I’m sad? You’re sadistic?’” Similarly inauspicious examples of the constriction of empathy and warping of inter-human relations include the “liking” of death announcements. On my own Facebook feed, I’ve witnessed friends post news of a parent’s death only to be bombarded with the thumb’s up and comments to the effect of: “Sorry man!” In addition to a cheapening of sentiment, Facebook also encourages alienation from reality by displacing the space-time continuum: instead of experiencing events and thoughts as they occur in real-time, users are often distracted by how best to market these events and thoughts to their Facebook audiences.

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“The lingerie, laced with modules of global positioning system (GPS), global system for mobile communications (GSM) and also pressure sensors, is capable of sending shock waves of 3,800 kV as well as alerts to the girl’s parents and police,” says Manisha Mohan, co-developer of the innovative product named Society Harnessing Equipment (SHE). “The shocks can be emitted up to 82 times,” she said, adding it’s an apt device which could get women “freedom from situations faced in bus, public places”, where at times they are reluctant to walk down to lawmakers for help. “A person trying to molest a girl will get the shock of his life the moment pressure sensors get activated, and the GPS and GSM modules would send a SMS on emergency number 100, as well as to parents of the girl. Thanks Jasmine.

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Police said “Suave”, a Miami pimp, allegedly forced a 13-year-old runaway to tattoo his street name on her eyelids. The pimp, who has a lengthy rap sheet, allegedly forced the girl to a Liberty City flea market tattoo shop to get the ink done after she threatened to leave him, CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald reports.

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Transcendental Meditation is just a fancy name for a common variety of meditation in which a mantra – a word or series of syllables – is repeated with the intention of creating a meditative state. Pretty much any word or syllable will do, despite the hype of TM, which insists that a mantra can only be given by a “qualified” instructor. The TM initiate is told never to reveal her mantra under any circumstances, lest its magic be lost. My instructor suggested that he had some particular insight into me in choosing my mantra, but this is utter nonsense. People who have taught TM have admitted that they are given a list of mantras they’re supposed to divvy out according to age and gender. Nothing mystical about it. Here’s one list, which contains a version of my “personal” mantra. In violation of the sacred rules of TM, I’m now going to reveal it to you: “aima.” That’s my mantra. Two syllables. Vaguely pleasant sounding.

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A man who crashed his car into a San Jose Walmart Sunday morning and began randomly beating people with a metal club was likely under the influence of methamphetamine, police said. The incident occurred just after 11 a.m., as a man who has not yet been named crashed his red Oldsmobile Cutlas into two other cars in the parking lot of a Walmart store, then cruised along a walkway near the front doors before plowing through the entrance. The driver kept on the gas for another 30 feet until the car finally came to a stop atop a beer display, at which point the driver exited and began assaulting people nearby with a metal club

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A recently passed nuisance control ordinance has spurred a citywide crackdown on house shows—concerts played in private homes, rather than in clubs. The police, it appears, are taking a particularly modern approach to address the issue: They’re posing as music fans online to ferret out intel on where these DIY shows are going to take place. While police departments have been using social media to investigate for years, its use in such seemingly trivial crimes would be rather chilling, if these efforts didn’t seem so laughably inept. It’s a law enforcement technique seemingly cribbed from MTV’s Catfish—but instead of creating a fake persona to ensnare the marks in a romantic internet scam, it’s music fandom that’s being feigned.

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While popes have for centuries washed the feet of the faithful on the day before Good Friday, never before had a pontiff washed the feet of a woman. That one of the female inmates at the prison in Rome was also a Serbian Muslim was also a break with tradition.

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A case of anthrax infection has been reported in a user of injectable heroin in France in the Rhone-Alpes, while four other cases, including two deaths, were reported in two other countries in the European Union, it was learned Friday from medical sources. An outbreak of anthrax related to injections of contaminated heroin occurred in 2009/2010, causing the infection of 119 people in Scotland, 5 in England and two in Germany. The infection by the bacterium, _Bacillus anthracis_, was diagnosed in France on July 9 in an intravenous heroin user, aged of 27, who, after a stay in intensive care, is currently convalescing. “He is recovering,” the Director of Public Health ARS-Sydney, Anne-Marie Durand told AFP. “There is [presently – Mod.MHJ] no known link between the four European cases (three in Germany with 1 death and one death in Denmark) and the French case,” she said.

Misspelled tattoos are the gift that keeps on giving. Here are more of the worst crimes ever made against the skin.

Henry Rollins: I looked at the ice cream scoop in my hand…my chocolate-bespattered apron…and my future in the world of minimum wage work…or I could go up to New York and audition for this crazy band who was my favorite. What’s the worst that’s gonna happen to me? I miss a day of work…ooh, there goes 21 bucks. In the audition, he sang every song the band had ever written, improvising most of the lyrics. Then came the scary part: he got the job. Henry Rollins: They said ‘Ok, you’re in.” I said “What do you mean?” They said “you’re the singer in Black Flag.” I said “So what do I do?” They said: “*snort* you quit your job, you pack your gear, you meet us on the road. Here’s the tour itinerary. Here’s the lyrics.”

A wide-ranging surveillance operation by the Food and Drug Administration against a group of its own scientists used an enemies list of sorts as it secretly captured thousands of e-mails that the disgruntled scientists sent privately to members of Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists and even President Obama, previously undisclosed records show.

A technique to remove pieces of ovary, store it for decades and then replace it with delicate surgery could effectively put a woman’s menopause ‘on ice’, doctors said. The only thing preventing them from having babies into their old age would be their physical ability to carry a pregnancy, they said. The controversial notion would allow career women peace of mind with a fertility insurance policy so they can find a partner, settle down and become financially secure before starting a family.

✪ One Mighty and Strong: Mormon Prophecy and Mitt Romney

Prior to his death, Smith had written a prophecy declaring that there would one day come a man “mighty and strong” (see scriptural reference at the top of this post) who would bring order to the “house of God”. Many (probably Joseph included) thought this mighty and strong man would be Smith himself. With the loss of their Prophet, Mormons struggled to understand who would fill those mighty shoes. After Smith’s death, a Mormon tradition arose about a Mormon on a “white horse” who would come at a time when the Constitution was “hanging by a thread” and would restore the promised land to the Mormon people.

I just got a new dog from the human society, and I was wondering if it was possible to get him circumcised?

”My advice would be to make sure you leave plenty of room around the groin area and that your pants and trousers feel comfortable so you’re not being restricted in any way. ”Men who wear tight or ill-fitting trousers, or underwear which is restrictive around the groin area could be damaging their health. ”Wearing tight-fitting clothing over a prolonged period of time can lead to urinary tract infections leading to over-activity of the bladder – a type of bladder weakness as well as a low sperm count and fungal infections. ”Please don’t put style before health.” Twisted testicles occur when tight trousers prevent the spermatic cord from moving freely, meaning it twists and leads to testicular torsion which cuts off the blood supply requiring immediate surgery to prevent a gangrenous testicle.

THE device in your purse or jeans that you think is a cellphone — guess again. It is a tracking device that happens to make calls. Let’s stop calling them phones. They are trackers.

Jewish institutions throughout the United States will receive $9.7 million in federal anti-terrorism grants this year out of a total of $10 million allocated to not-for-profit institutions by the Department of Homeland Security. That’s $6 million less than last year. But thanks to sharp cuts this year in the overall pool of money available through this program, the percentage of funds going to Jewish groups has nevertheless jumped substantially. A full 97% of the available funds in the Non-Profit Security Grant Program for 2012 have been allocated to Jewish organizations, compared with 73% that went to Jewish groups from 2007 through 2010. In 2011, Jewish groups received about 80% of NSGP funds.

The boy told investigators it began when Brashear asked him to spot her on the weights, then talked him into going into the tanning booth with her. Once inside, Brashear stripped off her clothes from the waist down and began kissing him, he said. Brashear stated to police she knew the boy was only 15, “there was nothing wrong or illegal about giving someone a kiss” and denied taking off her clothes, the affidavit says.

From February 2000 to April 2011, Griffis operated a tanning bed in a barn on his property at 2261 SE 128th St. in Starke. Customers would pay to use the bed by putting money in a slot. The bed had a two-way mirror, according to the government, and Griffis made a hole in an vent near the foot of the bed. Through the mirror and hole, he recorded customers as they undressed and got in and out of the tanning bed. His victims were “dozens of female customers, including more than 20 minor children,” the news release states. “Griffis produced, collected, and maintained the sexually explicit video recordings … for his own sexual gratification, and kept detailed notes on the types of physical and sexual characteristics of his customers.”

✪ Dog X-ray used in arrest of doctor in prescription probe

The undercover sheriff’s deputy pretending to be a patient in pain presented a Glendora physician with an X-ray to accompany her tale of an injured back and neck. The only problem was the X-ray revealed a “tail” of a different kind — one belonging to a dog. Though the X-ray for a German shepherd had the dog’s name, Recon, and the name of an animal hospital printed on it, the doctor wrote the deputy a prescription for a powerful narcotic painkiller and a muscle relaxant, law enforcement officials said.

An inmate who identified himself only as “Josh” told The Daily that the last time Sandusky was in jail, he and other prisoners serenaded the former assistant coach with a famous line from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” “At night, we were singing ‘Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone,’ ” Josh said.

But one item made him stop. Frozen in time beneath a wooden doll house and a century’s worth of dust, Mr. Kissner found a cardboard green box filled with baseball cards. The names sounded familiar — Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Cy Young, Connie Mack — and he soon contacted an auction house in Dallas. It was his family’s winning lottery ticket. Experts say the trove of about 700 nearly mint cards just might represent the greatest and rarest discovery in the sports card industry’s history. The best of the collection is expected to fetch more than $500,000 at the National Sports Collectors Convention next month in Baltimore while the entire stock could bring in $3 million.

He and his thug pal had stalked the family back to their home from the laundry, where Guerrero had just finished her weekly wash. “They were eye-balling them — and the chain,” said one police source. The duo attacked as the family got inside the lobby of their building, kicking in the door after the desperate mother had locked it. After neighbors started coming out of their apartments at the sound of the mother’s screams, the crooks fled with the necklace.

The tow truck driver told investigators he saw a naked man masturbating while driving the Cherokee. “The male’s hands were in his groin area moving around,” the police report said. When Casey was eventually pulled over along the side of Interstate 95, it took him a moment to come to a stop because, according to the arresting officer’s notes in the report, he was still trying to get dressed. When the officer asked him why he was driving naked, “Casey stated that he has problems with this and he is getting therapy,” the report said, adding that the man couldn’t explain why he was naked. The officer then patted Casey down and found a toy pistol tied to his leg, part of which was hidden in Casey’s behind. Another portion of the contraption was tied around his genitals, the report said.

Nothing is True, Everything is Permissible. – Hasan bin Sabbah The story of Hasan bin Sabbah is a tale of sex, drugs, myth, and murder. A secluded mountain fortress, a paradisial garden, poison dipped daggers, and covert political maneuverings are the ingredients of this alchemical mixture, which is undoubtedly one of the most intriguing true stories ever told.

“We spend billions and billions trying to interdict the importation [of drugs] into the country, trying to interdict the wholesale and retail of drugs, but when’s the last time someone saw a major public service announcement saying, ‘If you have opiate dependence, there’s treatment available, call this number’?” he asked.

According to the report, the victim heard Olmos say “room service” outside of their roomand the victim told her to “come in.” Olmos asked if they had any dirty towels and if the victim was alone, which he was, according to the police report. Olmos then asked “Can I touch?” The victim responded, “touch what?” Police said Olmos then grabbed the victim’s genitals on the outside of his shorts and said “you hot.” The victim then responded “you’re weird” and walked to the bathroom, waiting for Olmos to leave, according to the report.

The teeth of two of the world’s most famous composers have been stolen from their graves by a man who says he wants to start a museum. The alleged Czech thief who has boasted about his crime on the internet says he wants to now display the famous teeth and dentures he has robbed not just from Austrian waltz king Johann Strauss Jr. and German Romantic composer Johannes Brahms, but from hundreds of other graves as well. Austrian police were alerted to the crime after the grave robber released a video where he can be seen apparently pushing the cover to one of the composer’s tomb open – and pulling out a skull.

New details were revealed to WTVM about an adopted teenager who was allegedly kept in a chicken coop in Taylor County, GA. According to agents at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the 15-year-old girl told authorities a shock collar for dogs was placed around her neck and used on her several times. Investigators say a remote key fob was used to shock the girl at will by anyone in control of the collar.

Binney, who resigned from the NSA in 2001 over its domestic surveillance program, had just delivered a keynote speech in which he revealed what Shively called “evidence which we have not seen until this point.” “They’re pulling together all the data about virtually every U.S. citizen in the country … and assembling that information,” Binney explained. “So government is accumulating that kind of information about every individual person and it’s a very dangerous process.” He estimated that something like 1.6 billion logs have been processed since 2001.

“Abuse-deterrent formulations may not be the ‘magic bullets’ that many hoped they would be in solving the growing problem of opioid abuse,” the researchers wrote in the July 12 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

✪ Angry dad beats up facebook pervert

It began recently when the Cookeville man noticed that his 12-year-old daughter was receiving Facebook messages from an adult man he does not know. He asked his daughter about the messages and she did not know the man either. The father looked up the messenger’s Facebook page and there found his date of birth and phone number. He then decided to send messages to the Monterey man while posing as his own daughter. He sent text messages by phone to the man, and the man messaged back, thinking he was communicating with the little girl. Allegedly, he asked to see a photo of her in a swim suit. He also agreed to meet her at Cane Creek Park. But once he arrived there, it was her dad who met him, and he was very angry, according to police reports on the case. Before police arrived on the scene, the two men had a fight, and the Monterey man, who was bleeding, immediately told arriving officers that he deserved it.

While law enforcement and the government would like citizens to believe measures such as these are their way of catching up with the rapid pace of evolving technology in regards to criminal behavior, something more sinister could be at work. Given the interest the Department of Homeland Security has had in Occupy movements around the country as well as some of the more draconian police tactics that have been used on demonstrators, the increased surveillance of internet users and the content they choose to share via social networking, mobile devices or the web, it’s not difficult to call these information requests police state type tactics.

Fresh from performing at Science Gallery in Dublin last night during the opening of Hack the City, an English group of urbanists, technologists and architects who created GPS-enabled quadcopter drones, were held at London Southend Airport on suspicion of terrorism and recorded under the UK’s Terrorism Act. The group, known as Tomorrows Thoughts Today, had been performing their Electronic Countermeasures robotic ballet in the sky show at Science Gallery for the opening of the three-month Hack the City exhibition in Dublin City. The trio, headed up by Liam Young, had created the robotic drones from components that were originally intended for police surveillance. The drones had been swarming around Science Gallery last night to show how they can broadcast their own Wi-Fi network as a flying pirate file-sharing formation.

Just went to the hospital to visit Du Chuanwang. This 13-year-old mother-less child had gone to work in an auto repair shop to help take care of his family ended up having a high pressure pneumatic air pump gun stuck into his anus by two workers who then pumped air into him! The child’s intestines have essentially exploded, his scrotum now as large as a watermelon! His internal organs have all been squeezed together by the air pumped into his body, so horrific!

More than a year after the MPAA and RIAA announced their groundbreaking anti-piracy deal with U.S. Internet providers, the first warning letters are yet to be sent out. Previously, July 2012 was coined as the start date but the responsible parties are still not ready to launch. While TorrentFreak has learned that various ISPs will start the implementation at different times, it remains a mystery which company will be spying on filesharers. casSomewhere in the near future the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) will start to track down online ‘pirates’ as part of an agreement all major US Internet providers struck with the MPAA and RIAA. The parties agreed on a system through which copyright infringers are warned that their behavior is unacceptable. After five or six warnings ISPs may then take a variety of repressive measures, including temporary disconnections.

They are the pride of America – Team U.S.A. – and for the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in London, they’ll be proudly wearing red, white and blue, from beret to blazer. The classic American style – shown in an image above – was crafted by designer Ralph Lauren. But just how American is it? When ABC News looked at the labels, it found “made in China.” Every item in the uniforms that the U.S. athletes will be wearing at the opening ceremony in London will carry an overseas label.

✪ Agenda 21 Micro-Apartment Scheme Being Beta-Tested in NYC

The globalist design for micro-apartments is being championed by New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg. These “studio and one-bedroom apartments” will be no bigger than 275 to 300 sq ft. These tiny living spaces are smaller than currently allowed by building regulations, according to a statement by Bloomberg’s office; however the zoning regulations will be waived in over to construct the first of many compact pack ‘em and stack ‘em housing model in the city-owned area of Kips Bay.

A weird octopus with human head and female face caught by a fisherman in Padang, Indonesia. After showing the nature freak to the public and its pictures to be taken , he brought it home along with other octopus and squids to be cooked by his wife.

Because we don’t spend a large chunk of time up there, we haven’t done too much research on the long-term health effects of living on the moon. But a paper titled “Toxicity of Lunar Dust,” covering several aspects of the effects of moon dust on the human body, offers some insight: the moon is basically trying to kill you. Not actively, of course, but there are a lot of reasons to avoid the stuff (and no, a spacesuit isn’t going to save you). The big problem is inhalation; even with a suit, dust can end up back in suit-free living spaces. Then the dust can travel inside travelers’ lungs, causing inflammation and possibly, asbestos-style, even increasing the risk of developing cancer. The particles might be able to travel through the lungs more easily in the lower gravity environment, and exposure to UV and proton radiation could make the dust even more toxic.

✪ Marketers Track Retinas to Find What Draws Consumers

To find out what really draws their test shoppers’ attention, companies like Procter & Gamble Co., Unilever PLC and Kimberly-Clark Corp. are combining three-dimensional computer simulations of product designs and store layouts with eye-tracking technology. And that, in turn, is helping them roll out new products faster and come up with designs and shelf layouts that boost sales.

Mayhew called them “sewer hunters” or “toshers,” and the latter term has come to define the breed, though it actually had a rather wider application in Victorian times–the toshers sometimes worked the shoreline of the Thames rather than the sewers, and also waited at rubbish dumps when the contents of damaged houses were being burned and then sifted through the ashes for any items of value. They were mostly celebrated, nonetheless, for the living that the sewers gave them, which was enough to support a tribe of around 200 men–each of them known only by his nickname: Lanky Bill, Long Tom, One-eyed George, Short-armed Jack. The toshers earned a decent living; according to Mayhew’s informants, an average of six shillings a day–an amount equivalent to about $50 today.

The effort to depict drone warfare as some sort of courageous and noble act is intensifying: The Pentagon is considering awarding a Distinguished Warfare Medal to drone pilots who work on military bases often far removed from the battlefield. . . . [Army Institute of Heraldry chief Charles] Mugno said most combat decorations require “boots on the ground” in a combat zone, but he noted that “emerging technologies” such as drones and cyber combat missions are now handled by troops far removed from combat.

A German man opened the paper one morning to find a photo of himself identified as a wanted terrorist, in what seemed like a thriller plot turned into sinister reality. He still does not know who took the picture of him.

When it came to light that law enforcement has issued millions of annual requests/demands to the wireless carriers (AT&T;, Verizon, etc) to hand over user data, we all got a little concerned. Our carriers know everything about us, and according to findings by Rep. Markey (D-MA), “Information shared with law enforcement includes data such as geolocation information, content of text messages, wiretaps, among others.” But! We have weapons. Here are some tricks to help protect your privacy.

✪ ArtWalk Riot: Police vs Protesters over Sidewalk Chalk [Video]

The LAPD takes sidewalk chalk very seriously. Seriously enough to send 140 riot police to forcibly stop an Occupy LA group from drawing on the sidewalk during LA Artwalk. You can see eyewitness video below. 19 people were arrested after the police attacked the Chalk Walk demonstration with batons, rubber bullets, and tear gas.

“The often very aggressive prejudice against religion as backward, irrational and opposed to science is increasingly defining popular opinion,” said Michael Bongardt, a professor of ethics from Berlin’s Free University who added that the ruling reflected a profound lack of understanding in modern Germany for religious belief.

Explained AFA, “But that’s not the worst of it. Sears also sells books on bestiality and zoophilia. Titled ‘Dearest Pet, On Bestiality’ and “Bestiality and Zoophilia: Sexual Relations with Animals,’ these books are ‘how to’ manuals for people who want to have sex with animals.”

✪ Israel’s ‘Highless’ Marijuana & the CBD vs. THC Conundrum

The Israeli company responsible for developing Avidekel (pictured above), Tikun Olam, is not the first to breed a strain of cannabis that contains almost no THC at all. In 2005, GW Pharmaceuticals (creator of Sativex) grew “virtually mono-cannabinoidic plants that produce high percentages of these target cannabinoids: THC, CBD, THC-V, CBC, CBD-V, CBG or CBN.” Project CBD tested 17 different mothers of Cannatonic – a strain famous for its high CBD levels. Cannatonic #6 was high in CBD with hardly any THC, whereas the other plants were high in THC and low in CBD or high in both. Perhaps the great variety of results from different plants was because the Cannatonic strain is unstable, or perhaps people were getting different results from different growing conditions.

The 18-year-old said she was shopping when a man, who looked to be in his late 30s or early 40s, walked up and asked if her toenails were painted, according to a Columbia County Sheriff’s Office incident report. After replying yes and questioning why he wanted to know, the woman was asked if she’d watched America’s Funniest Home Videos. The man told her he was with the TV show and if she complied with his requests, everything she purchased that day would be free. She said she reluctantly agreed to let him take a photo of her foot. He asked if he could kiss her foot as part of the prank and she agreed. The man guided her to an area behind a clothing rack, dropped to the floor, grabbed her ankle and told her, “Don’t worry. I don’t bite.” He then started sucking on her big toe. The woman said she screamed at him to stop. Before the man ran from the store, he told her, “It tasted so good, though.” Thanks Jasmine

A Delaware company has hit Madonna and her label WB Records with a lawsuit claiming the pop star stole portions of one of their songs for her hit 1990 hit “Vogue,” reports E!. Pointing to a song called “Love Break,” released around 1977, VMG claims, “The portions of ‘Love Break,’ which have been copied into ‘Vogue’ and all its various ‘mixes,’ ‘remixes,’ videos, YouTube versions, etc., are numerous but intentionally hidden. The horn and strings in ‘Vogue’ are intentionally sampled from ‘Love Break’ throughout.” The company also says music producer Richard “Shep” Pettibone facilitated the process by altering the samples after he was originally hired by VMG to remix “Love Break,” later working on “Vogue.” “The unauthorized sampling was deliberately hidden by [Madonna] within ‘Vogue’ so as to avoid detection. It was only when VMG specifically looked for the sample, with the technology available to it in 2011, that the sampling could be confirmed,” VMG said.

A Bronx clothing designer says superstar Jay-Z and his former Roc-A-Fella record label partners owe him $7 million in unpaid royalties for designing the label logo, one of the best known symbols in rap music. In a copyright infringement suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court on Thursday, Dwayne Walker says he created the design. “The logo has become universally recognized as an iconic symbol of Jay-Z, one of the most successful recording artists in the history of popular music,” the suit says. It says Walker came up with the logo in 1995 when Roc-A-Fella was just starting out. The label is now a subsidiary of Universal Music Group.

A school bus driver who was convicted of assault for groping teens and women says an excessive intake of caffeine drove him to the acts. Kenneth Sands, 51, from Seattle, tried to use what is being called the caffeine defense at his sentencing on Tuesday. Sands had been convicted in Lewis County Superior Court of molesting three high school volleyball players and two women during and after a volleyball game in Onalaska on October 18, 2011. Sands says it was caffeine that had driven him to act out of character and that drinking too much caused a psychotic episode.

A study in the August edition of The Journal of School Health finds that the generations old theory of a “gateway drug” effect is in fact accurate for some drug users, but shifts the blame for those addicts’ escalating substance abuse away from marijuana and onto the most pervasive and socially accepted drug in American life: alcohol.

Unfortunately those who have been fantasizing about a romp in which layers of white cotton create the perfect sense of mystery (or bondage), exMormons offer few words of encouragement. Discomfort seems to be the predominant theme. I was continuously battling wedgies–often in public; how the people would stare as I would try to wrestle crumpled material out of my crack. Lady DB If you have ever worn the modern ones you should appreciate the distance these have come. When I first got married they came in a one piece get up with a wide neck so you could step into them. The back had a split crotch (not the kind in kinky panties) but this huge wide sloppy split that would separate under your clothes, leaving a draft in your nether region much of the time. The little panel they sew into the ladies special part was so poorly designed that it would roll and twist till you felt like you were skewered by a roll of old toilet paper.

Facebook and other social platforms are watching users’ chats for criminal activity and notifying police if any suspicious behavior is detected, according to a report. The screening process begins with scanning software that monitors chats for words or phrases that signal something might be amiss, such as an exchange of personal information or vulgar language. The software pays more attention to chats between users who don’t already have a well-established connection on the site and whose profile data indicate something may be wrong, such as a wide age gap. The scanning program is also “smart” — it’s taught to keep an eye out for certain phrases found in the previously obtained chat records from criminals including sexual predators. If the scanning software flags a suspicious chat exchange, it notifies Facebook security employees, who can then determine if police should be notified.

Pemberton tried it with another doctor and some friends on a Saturday in March of 2010. This is how he described the experience: A few minutes later, we were all sitting around in a euphoric haze, smiling benignly but with an incomprehensible, overwhelming desire to dance. It was nearly impossible to keep still. Then things became very vivid and real and everything everyone said suddenly became very important. Before we knew it we were piling into a cab, laughing and giggling uncontrollably and going to a club. The effects lasted for about another two hours …. I’d love to be able to tell you that I had a hideous time when I took mephedrone but the truth is, I didn’t. It was a lovely feeling and I can completely understand why people would use it.

Sometimes when I’m lying in bed at night counting sheep and thinking about the day I often wonder about: 1) ponies and 2) the fact that a bigger deal hasn’t been made about the fact Mitt Romney used to dress up like a police officer in college and pull people over. For fun. College is a time in many Americans’ lives when they do stupid shit like smoke too much pot, drink a lot, or have a lot of sex. That’s considered pretty “de rigueur” in college; these are kinks you work out of your system. You then leave said institution to go through the modern world paying your taxes and doing the right thing. But the GOP presidential candidate had a different gig: instead of drinking and smoking like the rest of America (he claims to have had “one sip” of beer and one drag of a cigarette his entire life, a number we don’t dispute), he would remain perfectly sober and put on a police uniform and pull people over.

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occupied not by stars and planets but substances that could become useful in everyday life – has concluded that scientists have synthesized barely one tenth of 1 percent of the potential medicines that could be made. The report, in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience, estimates that the actual number of these so-called “small molecules” could be 1 novemdecillion (that’s 1 with 60 zeroes), 1 million billion billion billion billion billion billion, which is more than some estimates of the number of stars in the universe.

Those of us who have been through a few media cycles of hysteria over the “latest drug menace” are always skeptical when the mainstream whips itself up into a fine frenzy over the newest chemical bug-a-boo threatening the citizenry. But even a stuck clock is right twice a day, and it appears that there’s some substance behind the negative publicity surrounding “bath salts,” which in no small part due to sensationalist press coverage, have become the latest quasi-legal drug craze to sweep the nation.

But as mapping images become sharper and more detailed, critics are warning of privacy risks. Nick Pickles, director of the civil-liberties group Big Brother Watch, perceives the new mapping technology as an intrusive practice that will lead to a surveillance society which delivers Internet browsers all the tools to spy on people in their own backyards. “The next generation of maps is taking us over the garden fence,” he asserted. “You won’t be able to sunbathe in your garden without worrying about an Apple or Google plane buzzing overhead taking pictures.” Consequently, Pickles suggests that mapping companies should ask for permission before they publish images of people’s homes online.

The results obtained for the total release of Xe-133 was 15.3 EBq (uncertainty range 12.2-18.3, EBq – 1018 Bq), more than 2 x total release from Chernobyl (Chernobyl total was 5.2 EBq) and “likely the largest radioactive noble gas release in history”. This took place between 11 and 15 March 2011. In fact, the release is greater than the entire estimated Xe-133 inventory of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, and is explained by the decay of I-133 (half-life 20.8h) into Xe-133. There is strong evidence that Xe-133 release started before the first active venting was made, possibly from structural damage to reactor components and/or leaks due to excessive pressure inside the reactor.

✦ Mob sexually assaults women at Egypt anti-sex assault rally

Friday’s march was called to demand an end to sexual assaults. Around 50 women participated, surrounded by a larger group of male supporters who joined to hands to form a protective ring around them. The protesters carried posters saying, “The people want to cut the hand of the sexual harasser,” and chanted, “The Egyptian girl says it loudly, harassment is barbaric.” After the marchers entered a crowded corner of the square, a group of men waded into the women, heckling them and groping them. The male supporters tried to fend them off, and it turned into a melee involving a mob of hundreds. The marchers tried to flee while the attackers chased them and male supporters tried to protect them. But the attackers persisted, cornering several women against a metal sidewalk railing, including an Associated Press reporter, shoving their hands down their clothes and trying to grab their bags. The male supporters fought back, swinging belts and fists and throwing water.

Lawmakers are working to block an unprecedented power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Clean Water Act (CWA) and control land alongside ditches, gullies and other ephemeral spots by claiming the sources are part of navigable waterways. These temporary water sources are often created by rain or snowmelt, and would make it harder for private property owners to build in their own backyards, grow crops, raise livestock and conduct other activities on their own land, lawmakers say. “Never in the history of the CWA has federal regulation defined ditches and other upland features as ‘waters of the United States,’” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking committee member, and Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

With a mohawk-style plume of hair and pink flesh covered in leopard-esque spots, the mysterious animal terrified locals in Xinxiang, Henan province Xinxiang is close to several scientific research centres and a local medical school – and locals became convinced the creature was an experiment gone wrong, on the run from a nearby lab. One witness said: ‘The pink skin makes it look just like pig gone wrong in some sort of genetic experiment.’

The 33-year-old, from Arizona, first made news headlines last year, when stories of her goal of reaching 1,600lbs appeared on the Internet and in various tabloids. Everyone was shocked that someone would actually want to become the world’s fattest person, and spend a small fortune in the process. Back then, Susanne revealed that she and her two boys, Gabriel, 16, and Brendin, 12, visit the supermarket and spend about eight hours filling six shopping carts with all kinds of foods. In order to reach the 800lbs-mark she had set for the end of 2011, the overweight single mom guzzled down about 20,000 calories a day. She didn’t reach her goal, but now the dedicated weight-gainer is getting married, and upped her daily intake to 30,000 calories, in order to become the world’s biggest bride.

The report is sure to reignite a long-simmering debate over public health and religious liberties: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Thursday that 11 baby boys in New York City were infected with herpes between Nov. 2000 and Dec. 2011 following an ultra-Orthodox Jewish circumcision ritual called metzitzah b’peh — or oral suction — in which the mohel puts his mouth directly on the newborn’s circumcised penis and sucks away the blood.

“He dug into a bag and popped one in his mouth. As soon as it hit his mouth somebody tells him, ‘You just ate moose shit’ and the whole group of people started laughing at him,” said Eyolfson. She said it was a parent chaperone that offered her son the so-called almonds from a sandwich baggie. But the principal of the school, a resource officer and her son’s teacher all watched it happen, Eyolfson said.

“A young man in town recalled that Mr. Romney confronted him as he smoked marijuana and drank on the beach last summer, demanding that he stop. The issue appears to be a recurring nuisance for the Romneys. Mr. Quint, who lives on the waterfront near Mr. Romney, said that a police officer had asked him, on a weekend when the candidate was in town, to report any pot smoking on the beach. The officer explained to him that “your neighbors have complained,” Mr. Quint recalled. “He was pretty clear that it was the Romneys.”

“Whenever somebody makes a score, he puts the word out and all the drugs are bought up,” the prisoner tells us. The preferred form of currency is books of stamps, which are valued at $6 each. “When the weed, heroin or oxys hit the yard, dudes have their stamps ready,” he continues. “It’s a first-come, first-serve basis, but you better have your cash in hand if you’re looking to cop.” Prison dealers always want payment up front. Marijuana, heroin and Oxycontin are the most popular substances overall, and supply generally meets demand. “I got busted for oxys and I can still get them in here,” the prisoner reflects. “The sad thing about it all is, they lock you up for drugs and they can’t even keep the drugs out of the prison.”

David Bronner, the CEO of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, was arrested today after engaging in an act of peaceful civil disobedience outside the White House to protest the federal ban on industrial hemp farming. Bronner locked himself in a steel cage with several hemp plants which he began harvesting and pressing for oil. Firefighters eventually cut open the lock and police then arrested Bronner.

STOMPer Minzy was disturbed by an online video which shows how this super-fresh frog sashimi was actually prepared in front of the customer while the frog was still alive. She felt that this is an extreme act of cruelty to animals. In the video, the frog is kept alive in a kitchen until someone places an order. The frog is then stabbed by the chef’s knife and stripped clean of its inedible innards. However, the frog can be seen twitching and its eyes blinking while served on an iced platter. After the sashimi bits are taken off, the rest of the frog is simmered to make a soup.

“She is a famous beauty,” Lagerfeld said of Choupette. “She is nine months old. [Model] Baptiste [Giaconi] gave her to me for Christmas to watch for two weeks when he was away but then I refused to give her back. I thought she was too cute. She is like a kept woman. She has a strong personality. She has lunch and dinner with me on the table, with her own food. She doesn’t touch my food. She doesn’t want to eat on the floor. She sleeps under a pillow and she even knows how to use an iPad. She has two personal maids, for both night and day. She is beyond spoiled. … “We do keep a diary. When I am not there, the maids take down, in little books, everything she did, from what she ate, to how she behaved, if she was tired, and if she wasn’t sleeping. In the nine months, we already have almost 600 pages. … I think it could be funny to make a little book of Choupette’s diary.”

It was reported yesterday that Ms. Lauryn Hill has been charged with three counts of misdemeanor failure to file taxes. These charges were incurred for the years of 2005-2007, during a time in which Ms. Hill had removed herself and her family from society, in order to keep them safe, healthy, and free from danger. In response to these charges, Ms. Hill has issued the following statement

But in some cases of genetic sexual attraction, the feelings are mutual. A Canadian woman identified as ‘Sally’ and her biological son felt immediately attracted to one another upon meeting again, 30 years after the boy’s birth. Their physical relationship developed, and the young man could hardly believe that the woman he found to be a perfect match was his biological mother. American couple Rachel and Shawn met in 1999 when they were both 27 and have been an enthusiastically happy couple since. They sought each other out after learning that they shared a birth father. Rachel and Shawn – who are engaged but legally prohibited from getting married – discussed in a 2007 report with ABC News all the ways in which they are a perfectly ordinary couple. They are even devout Christians; but their deep love for one another is what they consider the most important part of their lives.

He got the girl — and he got paid! The high-school senior caught on camera locking lips with his hot-to-trot teacher won a bet with four of his buddies to see who would hook up with her first, The Post has learned. Eric Arty, 18, beat his pals — who each ponied up $100 — to win the jackpot as well as the affections of glamorous global-studies teacher Julie Warning, 26. “It was a bet with a group of his friends,” said Andrew Cabrera, a junior at Manhattan Theater Lab HS, where Warning worked until Tuesday, when she was reassigned to an administrative job. “They gave him the $500 [pot],’’ Cabrera said, referring to Eric and the four other contenders who made their wager about three months into the school year.

In 2009 alone, the state denied more than 700 plate requests including IHAV2P and IAMHIGH along with 100 requests beginning with the letter “F” and myriad proposals involving the number “69,” according to state documents. Questionable formulations are so common that a 20-person committee of motor vehicle staff members meets for an hour each month to review suspicious applications. State guidelines ban deceptive plates with letters such as FBI or confusing configurations like O0O0O and NOTAG as well as excretory, sexual, racial or drug references. “It’s the only time you get to talk like that at DMV, that’s for sure,” said Department of Motor Vehicles spokeswoman Melanie Stokes, who sits on the review panel. Less offensive and more playful ideas, including EWOBAMA, IPUNCHU and DMYANKI, have all been reviewed and rejected at the meetings. Some slip through. Pictures have been posted on the Internet of the Virginia-issued 370H55V — which has to be read upside-down

The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011 on May 24, 2012. As in previous years, the reports are full of over-critical remarks on the human rights situation in nearly 200 countries and regions as well as distortions and accusations concerning the human rights cause in China. However, the United States turned a blind eye to its own woeful human rights situation and kept silent about it. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011 is hereby prepared to reveal the true human rights situation of the United States to people across the world and urge the United States to face up to its own doings.

Kenneth Dejoie claims his genitals were badly burned while using this urinal inside the store’s men’s room. The five-page lawsuit was filed in El Paso County District Court on May 25. The lawsuit claims that Dejoie was “utilizing the urinal in the men’s restroom when it caused a jet of steam to shoot forth from the urinal and burn his genitals.” Dejoie claims he reported the incident to an employee who, according to the lawsuit claimed “we have that bathroom problem again,” and “this happens when the sink in the kitchen is running.”

The trouble started in 2001 when she noticed a small patch of swelling on her forehead which she initially ignored because it was not painful. When her condition was finally diagnosed four years later, doctors said she had seven tumours growing on her face. But she has been unable to pay the £60,000 or 600,000 yuan medical bill and has been forced to watch them slowly grow. The mother said: ‘I know that a lot of people see me as a monster but I am just a normal woman and a mother inside.’

The United Nations is considering a new Internet tax targeting the largest Web content providers, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix, that could cripple their ability to reach users in developing nations. The European proposal, offered for debate at a December meeting of a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, would amend an existing telecommunications treaty by imposing heavy costs on popular Web sites and their network providers for the privilege of serving non-U.S. users, according to newly leaked documents. The documents (No. 1 No. 2) punctuate warnings that the Obama administration and Republican members of Congress raised last week about how secret negotiations at the ITU over an international communications treaty could result in a radical re-engineering of the Internet ecosystem and allow governments to monitor or restrict their citizens’ online activities.

The rescuers had rappelled from a helicopter, swaying in the brisk April winds as they bore down on a cave 7,000 feet up in a rugged desert mountain on the edge of this rural hamlet. There had been a call for help. Inside, they found a jug with about an inch of water, browned by floating leaves and twigs. They found a woman, Christie McNally, thirsty and delirious. And they found her husband, Ian Thorson, dead. The puzzle only deepened when the authorities realized that the couple had been expelled from a nearby Buddhist retreat in which dozens of adherents, living in rustic conditions, had pledged to meditate silently for three years, three months and three days. Their spiritual leader was a charismatic Princeton-educated monk whom some have accused of running the retreat as a cult.

Believe it or don’t, turtles are horrifically well endowed, and if the thought of learning more about the genitals of these oh-so-surprising reptiles doesn’t appeal to you, look away now. Last warning. Ok, here we go.

Leading up to the summits, fear-mongering by the city in conjunction with the media reached new lows. Business people were advised “to dress down” and “not wear suits” because they would be targeted by protesters. People who lived in condo buildings around the south loop were advised to leave town for the weekend. Many businesses closed, and news stations showed footage of shops boarding up their windows. The National Guard was on call, and even more startling, Milwaukee Red Cross was told to prepare for a possible evacuation of Chicago. Such propaganda greatly affects the average citizen. People were afraid to go downtown to protest, observe, or go about other business. The City of Chicago, media, and the federal government pooled their resources to scare American citizens from peacefully assembling. In a supposed free and democratic society, are congratulations in order for subversively preventing free speech and the right to peacefully assemble?

The affidavit said that on May 4, Gutierrez’s daughter began acting strangely in her first-grade classroom, talking to people who were not there and saying she could hear “banging in her head.” A school counselor called Gutierrez to report what was going on, and Gutierrez said, “Don’t call EMS and don’t call (Child Protective Services), I’m on my way,” the affidavit said. Gutierrez picked the girl up from school, took her home and then called for paramedics, the affidavit said. The girl was tested at a hospital, which returned a positive result for PCP, a powerful and illegal hallucinogen, the affidavit said. She was removed from the home and placed with a family member. Gutierrez also tested positive for the drug, the affidavit said. The girl told investigators that Gutierrez made her lunch that day, and that after she ate it, she felt “crazy and dizzy,” and her lunch meat tasted like “fireworks,” the affidavit said. She called the drug “angel dust”

The unhappy Scrooge McDucks of the world no longer have to rely on their butlers, congressmen, yacht bartenders, or car-elevator repair men to help them deal with the challenges of immense wealth. Big banks are now standing ready to help the superrich cope, with psychological “wealth counseling” services galore.

The flyers, which have been sent to thousands of potential customers around the country to promote a sale, offended the more delicate of Harvey Nichols’ client list. They show a woman with a damp patch on her orange trousers next to the slogan: ‘The Harvey Nichols Sale… Try To Contain Your Excitement.’ Thanks Jasmine

According to the report, the number of U.S. citizens who died in terrorist attacks increased by two between 2010 and 2011; overall, a comparable number of Americans are crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year.

Amid a number of reports of massive and bizarre radiation readouts coming from experts, eyewitnesses, radiation facilities, and a key choice news outlet, it has now come out that one of the largest nuclear bases is currently running a ‘nuclear containment exercise’. The Minot Airforce Base exercise, running in North Dakota, reportedly involves the use of B-52 aircrafts. The news comes after a developing story arose over the potential cover-up of a nuclear situation stemming from near the border of Indiana and Michigan. Sources from near where the elevated levels of radiation were observed say that a Department of Homeland Security ‘hazmat’ fleet has been dispatched after ‘years’ of inactivity. The story first erupted after online geiger readings showed an unprecedented radiation spike in the area, with levels reaching as high as 7.139 counts per minute (CPM) over the average of between 5 and 6.

A man who was hitchhiking across the country for a memoir called “Kindness in America” was shot along a rural highway in northeastern Montana, police there say. Ray Dolin, 39, of West Virginia, approached a pickup truck on Saturday near Glasgow, Mont., thinking the driver was offering him a ride, Valley County Sheriff Glen Meier told The Associated Press. Dolin was shot in the arm.

A respected mainstream publication, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung(FAZ), has reported that the infamous Houla massacre in Syria, which the US and NATO hoped would be the casus belli for their planned invasion, was in fact carried out by rebel forces.

A south St. Louis County Walmart was evacuated after a woman detained for shoplifting was making meth in the loss prevention office. St. Louis County police responded to the Walmart on Telegraph Road near Interstate 255 for a report of a woman shoplifting. Loss prevention had detained the woman, and she was placed in a holding area until officers arrived. While she was detained, she had a 20 ounce soda bottle in her purse that was cooking meth while she was in the holding room. Because meth is known to explode, the store was immediately evacuated. A hazmat team then had to respond to clean up the holding room

Most of us only consider diamonds as the most expensive materials in the world but there are many of them… here below are listed 16 costliest materials.

But in the rare-wine world, doubts are endemic; murkiness is built into a product that is concealed by tinted glass and banded wooden cases and opaque provenance and the fog of history. At the same time, the whole apparatus of the rare-wine market is about converting doubt into mystique. Most wealthy collectors want to spend big and drink famous labels, not necessarily ask questions or hear the answers. Guests at tastings don’t want to bite the hand that quenches them. Auctioneers may not want to risk losing consignments by nitpicking ambiguous bottles. Winemakers don’t like to talk about counterfeiting, for fear of the taint. Also, one thing not high on the FBI’s list of investigative priorities: billionaires getting snowed by wine forgers. It’s clear to everyone on this rarefied circuit that wine fraud is rampant. It’s also clear not many insiders feel an urgency to do anything about it.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday that 23 percent of high school students said they recently smoked marijuana, while 18 percent said they had puffed cigarettes. The survey asked teens about a variety of risky behaviors. For decades, the number of teens who smoke has been on the decline. Marijuana use has fluctuated, and recently rose. At times, pot and cigarette smoking were about the same level, but last year marked the first time marijuana use was clearly greater.

Apart from Guns N’ Roses, whose 1987 debut studio album “Appetite for Destruction” is a hard-rock landmark, the music of the Strip is often dismissed as disposable, and the scene is remembered as a cheerfully depraved Aqua Net playground. To get a fuller sense of what the Strip was really like, Sia Michel spoke with Duff McKagan, the former bassist of Guns N’ Roses, whose song “Paradise City” is sung by Mr. Cruise himself in the prologue; Bret Michaels of the glam-rockers Poison, which has several songs in “Rock of Ages”; and Sebastian Bach, the former lead singer of the New Jersey band Skid Row, who has a cameo. These are excerpts from the conversations.

“I used LSD from approximately 1972 to 1974. Throughout that period of time I used the LSD approximately ten to fifteen times. I would ingest the LSD on a sugar cube or in a hard form of gelatin. I would usually take the LSD when I was by myself. I have no words to explain the effect the LSD had on me, although, I can say it was a positive life changing experience for me and I am glad I went through that experience.”

Almost the exact moment I put pressure on my tonsil a giant colony (that really is the best word) unveiled itself from the part of my tonsils that are hidden. It was the most disgusting event my body as ever put on. At least 15 of them – on each tonsil – were popping out LIKE POPCORN. Giant pieces of yellow, smelly, popcorn. I didn’t know I had that much tonsil hidden away back there not to mention the very deep tunnels going through them where these tonsil stones were apparently hiding. Don’t even get me started on the taste…it wasn’t just an explosion of the stones…I still have nightmares of this you know. I emptied them on to a kleenex and showed my mom who was absolutely disgusted.

Sometime during the video chat, things went horribly wrong. “His manhood or his ego was challenged and he said something along the lines of, ‘I’ll show you,'” Gallagher said. “He thought he was clowning around, trying to shock the other party on the Internet site.” That’s when the teen picked up his older brother’s gun and, believing it was unloaded, put it to his head and pulled the trigger, police said.

A Trinity man arrested for allegedly fighting with his stepfather showed off his disdain for the constable who got him arrested in March by tattooing his leg with an explicit saying. “Woody Wallace can [explicit] my [explicit],” the tattoo read. Constable Woody Wallace said his office arrested Jonathan Thompson, 30, after he got in an altercation with his stepfather. Authorities arrested him on a charge of terroristic threat on Monday. While police were booking Thompson into jail, they saw the tattoo. “They have to take pictures of all their tattoos and he said, ‘Make sure you get this one right here,'” Wallace said. “Then they all said, ‘Woody, you got to get in here.’ I saw it and said, ‘Is that real?’ and he said ‘Yup!'”

Yang, who co-owns the store, refused to open the cash register and used bear-repellent spray on the two men. One man fled and Yang grabbed the other man and held him at the store counter, spanking him and then holding him by his legs.

Just in case police in Brooklyn, New York, weren’t aware that it was break-in day, accused burglars notified them via Facebook status update. Here’s the helpful way in which the day’s events were posted by Derrin Dyson, one of 14 accused accomplices in a burglary gang known as the “Brower Boys”: “It’s break-in day on the avenue.” Unfortunately for the Brower Boys, alleged gang members had unwittingly friended the Brooklyn Police Department’s Officer Michael Rodriguez on Facebook.

The use of antidepressants has increased dramatically over the past 25 years, says Michael Thomas of Idaho State University in Pocatello. Around 80 per cent of each drug passes straight through the human body without being broken down, and so they are present in waste water. In most communities, water purification systems cannot filter out these pharmaceuticals. “They just fly right through,” says Thomas, which means they ultimately find their way into the water supply.

The mayor and his son allegedly began their scheme to hack into the site and intimidate its operators and participants starting on 6 February. Over the next two days, Joseph Roque allegedly posed as an interested contributor so as to send messages to the site owner and learn his identity. Meeting with a lack of success in this subtle approach, Roque the Younger then allegedly took this direct approach instead: he Googled terms including “hacking a Go Daddy site,” “html hacking tutorial,” “how to hack a [Provider’s name] password,” and “how to hack a [Provider’s name] account.” Here’s how the alleged hacking then went down, according to the FBI affidavit: On 8 February, Roque the Younger managed to reset the password for the email account associated with the site’s domain name and to cancel that domain name. While he was in the account, he allegedly snapped a bunch of screenshots of emails from contributors, some of which gave away the contributors’ identities.

A passenger at Detroit Metro Airport was asked for his boarding pass and ID, but responded: ‘Yes, and I have two bombs and three guns’ while laughing, according to TSA’s “Blogger Bob” Burns. After being asked not to say that, the passenger said ‘I do not have two bombs, only one bomb,’ according to Burns. A passenger at Preston Smith International Airport in Lubbock, TX , said Burns, told an airline employee that they were going to blow up American Airlines. When asked what he meant by that, he replied, ‘You’re about to find out,’ according to Burns. A passenger at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas said ‘There is a bomb in my bag,’ after being told her luggage had missed her flight, according to Burns.

Alkaloids constitute a very large group of natural nitrogen-containing compounds with diverse effects on the human organism. A large variety of plant-produced alkaloids have strong pharmacological effects, and are used as toxins, stimulants, pharmaceuticals or recreational drugs, including caffeine, nicotine, morphine, quinine, strychnine, atropine and cocaine. Atropine, used to dilate the pupils of the eye, and the addictive drug cocaine are both tropane alkaloids which possess two distinctive, inter-connecting five- and seven-membered rings.

The corrections officer said he was afraid that Liberty County Jail managers were failing to respond quickly enough to the nightly pornography shows and he was afraid it could lead to added violence between inmates. “That’s got to be in their mind. They’re watching this constantly and you have no way of releasing your frustrations,” said the jailer. “They can take full advantage of anybody.” Liberty County Sheriff’s Office Captain Rex Evans said the inmates were able to “somehow manipulate the system and were actually watching, at their own leisure, pornographic material.” One recent inmate told Local 2 Investigates there would be “a lot of fights” because of the nightly porn viewing. He said some guards didn’t care and allowed it to be watched. Another recent inmate, who also said he viewed the pornographic movies behind bars, said inmates would gather around and watch it for hours each night. He said it “made the showers hell” as inmates would act out from viewing the porn

Because Florida is running out of unique ways to embarrass itself, a 26-year old meth enthusiast set fire to and destroyed the world’s fifth oldest tree last month. While she was in it. Smoking meth. Sarah Barnes had climbed the tree to smoke, because where better to get high than in the branches of a 118-foot, 3,500 year old cypress ? The fire in question came when she wanted to get a better view of her surroundings, and presumably also her drugs. “The Senator,” as the tree was known, was burned to the ground. The good news is that Barnes seemed sufficiently chastened by the whole thing, reportedly telling friends that “I can’t believe I burned down a tree older than Jesus.” Neither can he, Sarah. Neither can he. So what have we learned? First of all, please be careful with lighters. In the wrong hands, they can be deceptively destructive little gadgets. And then yes, right, meth. Don’t do that.

A man showed up for a job interview near Sacramento naked and high on methamphetamine, and now cellphone footage of his fight with police has gone viral. Jose Ayala didn’t make the best first impression at a Del Paso Heights-area welding shop when he showed up last week frazzled and unclothed, says shop owner Chris Johnson, who added he won’t soon forget the job applicant.

A husband, his wife and her lover have been charged with conspiracy to commit bestiality after using Craigslist to find a dog for the wife to have sex with. Shane Walker and his wife Sarah Dae, who describe themselves as swingers in an open marriage, were arrested after an undercover sting operation. The couple, and her lover Robert Aucker, were held after they drove out to a pre-arranged location to engage in the unnatural sex. The two men were to watch while Sarah Dae had sex with the dog. The trio had been hoping to meet the owner of a Golden Shepherd having spent three weeks corresponding with her over the use of the dog. But when they arrived at the location in Phoenix, Arizona,they were arrested by detectives. The owner of the dog had tipped off police about the trio’s plans and an undercover officer took her place during the meeting. Before their arrest the three offered the ‘dog owner’ the opportunity to take part.

Lindsay Blankmeyer is seeking up to $150,000 in damages and fees claiming that Stonehill College in Massachusetts did not assist her in dealing with her overly sexual roommate, The AP reports. Blankmeyer, who according to the criminal complaint suffers from depression and attention deficit disorder, first approached Stonehill officials with a complaint about her roommate, Laura, violating the school’s rules by having sex with her boyfriend without her permission. The actual intercourse and cyber sex had by Laura in Blankmeyer’s presence exacerbated her depression to the point of her becoming suicidal, alleges the complaint. Thanks Jasmine

Four dozen high-tech computing devices disappeared from the offices of NASA over a two-year span, including one laptop that contained the code needed to command the International Space Station. No big deal, guys!

A growing body of psychology research shows that incompetence deprives people of the ability to recognize their own incompetence. To put it bluntly, dumb people are too dumb to know it. Similarly, unfunny people don’t have a good enough sense of humor to tell. This disconnect may be responsible for many of society’s problems. With more than a decade’s worth of research, David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, has demonstrated that humans find it “intrinsically difficult to get a sense of what we don’t know.” Whether an individual lacks competence in logical reasoning, emotional intelligence, humor or even chess abilities, the person still tends to rate his or her skills in that area as being above average.

Republicans in Indiana are taking self-defense too far. In a move supported by the National Rifle Association, the Indiana House passed Senate Bill 1, which allows homeowners to shoot and kill police officers they believe are unlawfully on their property or in their homes. The bill could also extend to federal law enforcement officials.

The democratic process relies on the assumption that citizens (the majority of them, at least) can recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when they see it. But a growing body of research has revealed an unfortunate aspect of the human psyche that would seem to disprove this notion, and imply instead that democratic elections produce mediocre leadership and policies. The research, led by David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, shows that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people’s ideas. For example, if people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts. They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments.

UK web surfers have caught a grim glimpse of the future with Internet users being threatened with 10 years in jail for “illegal downloading” after a prominent music file-sharing site was shut down shortly after Britain signed the notorious ACTA bill. It is the first time such a move has been made against Internet users in the UK. The British government introduced regulations in 2009 enabling Internet providers to track users who downloaded illegal content from the web and disable their connection if warning letters had no effect. But signing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has brought the conflict to a whole new level. In Europe, people are taking to the streets in protest at the contradictory Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, with some countries refusing to sign it.

NSFW – Thanks Billy

★ Dominique Tarlé – Recording Exile

Dominique Tarlé is an acclaimed French photographer best known for his association with The Rolling Stones. The Stones escaped the UK’s punitive tax regime in 1971 and decamped to the South of France at Villa Nellcôte, where Keith had set up house with Anita Pallenberg and their son Marlon. It became the location where Exile On Main Street was recorded, with the help of a mobile recording truck connected to a basement studio. Tarle recounted to the New York Times that, “A carnival of characters paraded through: Terry Southern, Gram Parsons, John Lennon, even a tribal band from Bengal… dope dealers from Marseille; petty thieves, who stole most of the drugs and half the furniture; and hangers-on, all of them there to witness what was happening.”

The unidentified infant died Sept. 28, 2011, at Maimonides Hospital, according to a spokeswoman for the city Medical Examiner, who confirmed the death after a News inquiry. The cause of death was listed as “disseminated herpes simplex virus Type 1, complicating ritual circumcision with oral suction.” City officials declined to comment Friday. It’s unclear who performed the circumcision. In 2004, city health officials revealed that a baby boy died after a circumcision carried out by a Rockland County rabbi who specializes in the centuries-old, ultra-Orthodox ritual known as metzizah b’ peh. Under the practice, the rabbi or mohel removes blood from the wound with his mouth — a practice city health officials have criticized, saying it carried “inherent risks” for babies.

The Lorax — that squat orange creature Dr. Seuss created to speak for the trees — is now hawking SUVs at elementary schools across the land. The sales pitch is part of the National Education Association’s “Read Across America tour — Driven by Mazda,” which arrived at Alexandria’s James K. Polk Elementary School on Tuesday. It was a hybrid event: a celebration of reading, a fundraiser for public-school libraries, and an opportunity to market Mazdas to the pint-size set. While they don’t buy many cars themselves, they have direct access to parents who do. “I track school advertising for a living,” said Josh Golin, associate director of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. “This is among the most outrageous examples of any school advertisement program I’ve ever heard of.”

A 17-year-maid from Zimbabwe was caught lacing the porridge of her employers’ four-year-old child with her own menstrual blood. According to NewsDay, Pelagia Mureya, who is HIV-positive, “carried out the disgusting act several times until luck ran out.” The ruse was discovered when her employer “noticed a drop of blood when her child was eating porridge, and investigated.”

A subpoena by the New York City District Attorney’s office to Twitter should raise alarm bells for anyone who uses social media during demonstrations. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the DA subpoenaed the social media site for “any and all user information, including email address, as well as any and all tweets posted for the period of 9/15/2011-12/31/2011” from user Malcolm Harris (h/t Common Dreams). Harris (@destructuremal), managing editor for the New Inquiry online magazine, was arrested with 700 other demonstrators on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2011. The arrested were charged with disorderly conduct, which carries a punishment of a $250 fine or up to 15 days in jail.

Japanese researchers have created a hand-held gun (pictured above) that can jam the words of speakers who are more than 30 meters (100ft) away. The gun has two purposes, according to the researchers: At its most basic, this gun could be used in libraries and other quiet spaces to stop people from speaking — but its second application is a lot more chilling. The researchers were looking for a way to stop “louder, stronger” voices from saying more than their fair share in conversation. The paper reads: “We have to establish and obey rules for proper turn-taking when speaking. However, some people tend to lengthen their turns or deliberately interrupt other people when it is their turn in order to establish their presence rather than achieve more fruitful discussions. Furthermore, some people tend to jeer at speakers to invalidate their speech.” In other words, this speech-jamming gun was built to enforce “proper” conversations.

Seattle’s KOMO 4 News reports on their city’s police department’s issue with tens of thousands of cop car dashcam videos “vanishing”. In the latest incident for which cruiser footage of critical moments was mysteriously lost, two innocent young men (both African American) were beaten and arrested at gunpoint for no legitimate reason. After they are taken to jail, an officer tells one that he will “make stuff up” and send them to prison for robbery. But no worries, the police department investigated itself and found no wrongdoing by officers. A department spokesman comments that concerned citizens have to “trust the system, trust the process”.

FoodNavigator.com has issued a collection of its recent articles on “natural” and processing. At issue is the meaning of “natural,” which many people perceive as equivalent to organic or healthy. As I’ve said before, it isn’t. Natural has no regulatory meaning. The FDA merely says (note obfuscating double negatives): From a food science perspective, it is difficult to define a food product that is ‘natural’ because the food has probably been processed and is no longer the product of the earth. That said, FDA has not developed a definition for use of the term natural or its derivatives. However, the agency has not objected to the use of the term if the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances.

Cut to February 2012, and the mega-celebrity, Jennifer Aniston, best known for playing perky girl-next-door Rachel in “Friends,” is tipping a bowl of ayahuasca to her lips in Universal’s newest romantic comedy “Wanderlust.” In just a few years, the once secret “shamans brew” of the Amazon has snaked its way into the popular consciousness, including the entertainment industry with cameos in the TV shows “Weeds” and “Nip/Tuck” and now the movie “Wanderlust.” But the question remains: Can Hollywood portray this ancient medicinal, psychonautic elixir with the maturity and complexity necessary to address its multifaceted experiences?

A 41-year-old Enochs High School teacher in Modesto has resigned and moved in with an 18-year-old student. The reaction has been largely shock, disapproval and betrayal. The teen’s mother has waged a very public campaign on Facebook since last week, when her daughter moved out of the family’s home and into a Modesto apartment with the man. He has left his wife and children, one of whom is a junior at Enochs. Modesto police are investigating whether there was inappropriate contact before the girl turned 18 in the fall. And school district and teachers union officials worry that an ethical and moral line has been crossed, even if the student is legally an adult.

Everyone has heard of Percival Lowell’s theories of Martian canals, but have you heard the theory of Mars’ vast thinking vegetable and its mammoth eye? The above is an artist’s rendition of the eye of Mars. It’s not a metaphorical depiction. What you see is exactly what the theory claimed: (from the caption) “A vast eye, upon a tenuous, flexible, transparent neck raises itself high above the surface of Mars and can watch the growth of its vegetable body upon any part of the surface.” Its “vegetable body” is a Mars-hugging super-organism of intelligent vegetable life that creeps along the cracks left in the drying Martian surface (Lowell’s erstwhile “canals”).

According to Sen. Graham, open questions include possible financial support of al Qaeda by Saudi charities, and the role of a Saudi resident of California who was in contact with both the hijackers and Saudi officials. “There was a direct line,” wrote Graham, “between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11th attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia, and [a] Saudi government agent living in the United States, Omar al Bayoumi, provided direct assistance to September 11th hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar.” “Finally someone who knows some of the truth about 9/11 is standing up and saying ‘wait a minute, we didn’t give those guys the all clear’ as Saudi Arabia has been saying for several years,” said Sharon Premoli of Vermont, who was in the World Trade Center when it was struck. “Exonerated, I don’t think so!”

It has been almost 12 months since the Fukushima nuclear disaster began. Although the Great East Japan earthquake and the following tsunami triggered it, the key causes of the nuclear accident lie in the institutional failures of political influence and industry-led regulation. It was a failure of human institutions to acknowledge real reactor risks, a failure to establish and enforce appropriate nuclear safety standards and a failure to ultimately protect the public and the environment.

Generations of children have been moved by its powerful tale of how rampant greed and consumerism destroyed the forest of Truffula Trees and the Brown Bar-ba-loots, Swomee-Swans, and Humming-Fish that depended on them. But now, according to the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), the book’s powerful message is in danger of being crushed by a real-life landslide of corporate greed after Dr. Seuss Enterprises, Random House, and Universal Pictures produced the film and sold licenses for the various product agreements. In a statement accouncing their new campaign to ‘Save the Lorax!’ the CCFC writes: For more than forty years, Dr. Seuss’s classic book, The Lorax, has been a clarion call for reducing consumption and promoting conservation. But this Friday, Universal Pictures’ The Lorax arrives in theaters with dozens of corporate partners promoting everything from SUVs to Pottery Barn to Pancakes.

“I thought, ‘My God what is it?’ It’s like nothing we have ever seen – it almost looks prehistoric.”

The couple, who were walking their dogs at Bridge of Don, Aberdeen, called coastguards to investigate.

BHOPAL: This real life incident has the making of a scene from some vampire movie. A 22-year-old woman in Damoh district of Madhya Pradesh has told the police that her husband drank her blood for the past three years. “He used to take a syringe and draw blood from my arms,” Deepa Ahirwar said. “He would then empty it in a glass and drink it. For three years he did this on a regular basis, threatening me of dire consequences if I revealed this to anyone.”

According to the lawsuit, Dr. Anthony Pickett performed the circumcision on the boy, now 8, at the Maternity Center of Vermont on Jan. 3, 2003. Pickett used a Miltex Mogen clamp that removed 85 percent of the top of the boy’s penis, according to the suit.

“Because of the defective design of the circumcision clamp, there was no protection for the head of the penis and Dr. Pickett was unable to visualize the (head) when excising the foreskin,” according to the plaintiffs’ court papers filed regarding the settlement. “For this reason, an amputation to the (head) of plaintiff’s penis occurred.”

Owning yeast and sugar isn’t enough to get you arrested in most places. But in some communities of rural Alaska, the high rate of alcohol abuse has caused voters to ban booze along with possession of the supplies to make it at home.

A recent case highlights a 2007 state law that makes it illegal for a person to possess yeast and sugar in a local option community if they intend to use the ingredients to make home-brew, a cloudy, intoxicating liquid often mixed with fruit juice. Villages have the option to ban booze as one way to combat to a longstanding epidemic of alcohol-related injuries and deaths in rural Alaska.

► Japanese rocker dies in jail after plane incident

A Japanese rock musician who tried to hang himself after being arrested for unruly behaviour on a flight to the Mariana Islands has died in hospital, reports say.

Rocker Taiji Sawada, who was best known as the former bass player with heavy metal group “X”, died yesterday when medics at Saipan’s Commonwealth Health Centre turned off his life support, the Saipan Tribune reported.

The Marianas Variety newspaper reported that Sawada, 45, had been in intensive care since July 14 after he tried to hang himself with a bedsheet in a jail in the US-administered Pacific territory.

He had been arrested three days before for allegedly assaulting a female cabin crew attendant during a Delta Airlines flight from Tokyo to Saipan, court documents showed.

After 15 years of market growth…[dealers] were finding it harder to sell drugs, as pay cuts, tax rises and job losses left recreational users with less money. The Irish gangs were unable to shift larger hauls and, in any case, lacked the resources to buy in bulk, so they were ordering smaller quantities. This liquidity crisis was an unfamiliar problem for criminals used to having a river of money at their disposal.

User arrests are down by 20% in recent years and the value of drugs seized—used as a proxy for market size—has hit 15-year lows. This demand elasticity is evident in both hard and soft drug markets: the value of cocaine seized last year is less than half that of previous years, marijuana’s a tenth of its 2006 peak. Even heroin junkies have economised; the value of seized heroin has fallen more than 85% since 2008.

Eight illegal immigrants from Mexico were arrested on drug trafficking charges after federal and Las Vegas law enforcement officials seized 212 pounds of drugs worth an estimated street value of $5.7 million in the largest methamphetamine bust in Nevada history, authorities announced Thursday.

Police also seized $280,000 in cash, six guns and nine vehicles used for drug trafficking after searching nine residential properties in Las Vegas and Henderson on Tuesday.

Law enforcement officials heralded the record bust as a significant blow to Las Vegas’ illegal underground that would be felt by every player, including drug bosses, small-time dealers and users hoping to score on the street. The raid yielded four pounds of heroin and 208 pounds of methamphetamine in varying stages of processing, from its liquid form to the crystal-like pieces sold on the street in small quantities for consumption.

► Nevada Test Site: Tourists revisit the Cold War at Nevada Test Site

There was a time when a mushroom cloud billowing over the Nevada desert was celebrated as a symbol of American strength — and, about 75 miles southeast in Las Vegas, as a terrific tourist draw.

In the 1950s, casinos threw “dawn parties,” where gamblers caroused until a flash signaled the explosion of an atomic bomb at the Nevada Test Site. Tourism boosters promoted the Atomic Cocktail (vodka, brandy, champagne and a dash of sherry) and pinups such as Miss Atomic Blast, who was said to radiate “loveliness instead of deadly atomic particles.”

Sixty years after the first atmospheric tests here, the 1,375-square-mile site continues to be a tourist magnet, though of a far different nature. Thousands of people each year sign up months in advance to see what is essentially a radioactive ghost town.

If your heritage is non-African, you are part Neanderthal, according to a new study in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution. Discovery News has been reporting on human/Neanderthal interbreeding for some time now, so this latest research confirms earlier findings.

Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal’s Department of Pediatrics and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center conducted the study with his colleagues. They determined some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals, but only in people of non-African heritage.

“This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred,” Labuda was quoted as saying in a press release. His team believes most, if not all, of the interbreeding took place in the Middle East, while modern humans were migrating out of Africa and spreading to other regions.

Some close to Bachmann fear she won’t be equal to the stress of the campaign, much less the presidency itself.

“When she gets ‘em, frankly, she can’t function at all. It’s not like a little thing with a couple Advils. It’s bad,” the adviser says. “The migraines are so bad and so intense, she carries and takes all sorts of pills. Prevention pills. Pills during the migraine. Pills after the migraine, to keep them under control. She has to take these pills wherever she goes.”

To staff, Bachmann has implausibly blamed the headaches on uncomfortable high-heel shoes, but those who have worked closely with her cite stress, a busy schedule and anything going badly for Bachmann as causes.

► Change of heart – Former Nazi teeny boppers Prussian Blue are singing a new tune

“I have to say, marijuana saved my life,” Lynx told me. “I would probably be dead if I didn’t have it.” She discovered pot while recovering from her cancer treatments. She’d been prescribed morphine and OxyContin, which she quit cold turkey. One day when she was having a bout of nausea, a friend offered her a toke. She was reluctant at first. The girls’ biological father had been “a druggie” when they were young, Lynx said.

But the drug worked wonders, and soon Lynx became one of the first five minors to get a medical marijuana card in Montana. Now Lamb has one, too.

Pot has also helped the twins rekindle the creative impulses they once channeled into their music. They’ve both taken up painting — astrological themes, mostly — and Lynx restores furniture. They hope to enroll in college, and intend to dedicate themselves to making medical marijuana legal in all 50 states.

Heartbroken Mr Gannon, who married Patrice in Jamaica early this year, believes his new wife fled to Bristol to meet a Jamaican boyfriend with whom she had organised the scheme.

Yesterday, historian and author Barry H. Landau was arrested on charges of stealing historical documents, including ones signed by Abraham Lincoln, from the Maryland Historical Society. The arrest eventually led to Landau’s locker, where police found upwards of 60 documents worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Laudau’s heist and the tremendous value of the stolen documents got us thinking about the other end of the literature theft spectrum: what are the most frequently stolen books from bookstores?

The results are surprisingly consistent–the same books and authors keep getting stolen across the country, so much so that many of them are frequently shelved behind the counter. Here are 5 of the most frequently stolen books, with sources listed below.

The main ingredients are melatonin, a hormone that is intended to induce drowsiness; L-theanine, an amino acid primarily found in green tea; GABA, a chemical that calms the mind; B vitamins, and chamomile — a plant that often winds up as tea that people drink to help them unwind.

Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, was the target of “a white foam pie” attack on Tuesday as he was testifying before a British Parliament committee about the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

Apparently, the white boy was in the wrong country. Treat the non-whites in white countries like kings and queens but don’t receive the same treatment in their country, a bit funny, isn’t it? The poor little kid… If I knew who he was, I would raise him, I’m still not sure if he’s dead or alive, such a poor kid… another kid bites the dust from non-whites action as always. He is white, why does people get upset when I mention the word WHITE? This is life, accept it. The Chinese people are saying “white boy, go home, go away”.

After inhaling a mall-bought batch of “Iaroma”—a synthetic pot substitute sold as ‘incense’—a 19-year-old Chicago boy dies after taking a 100 mph joyride into a neighbor’s house.

Baphomet is an enigmatic, goat-headed figure found in several instance in the history of occultism. From the Knights Templar of the Middle-Ages and the Freemasons of the 19th century to modern currents of occultism, Baphomet never fails to create controversy. But where does Baphomet originate from and, most importantly, what is the true meaning of this symbolic figure? This article looks at the origins of Baphomet, the esoteric meaning of Baphomet and its occurrence in popular culture.

A loaded rifle was recovered from the scene as was more gunpowder and 300 feet of detonation cord found in an open safe, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Amid news that troubled rap veteran Earl “DMX” Simmons had allegedly been caught smuggling contraband into prison thus extending his sentence, a spokesperson from the Arizona Department of Corrections has decried the erroneous reports that the rapper committed the said offense.

Barrett Marson, the media contact that dismissed the reports, gave a quote to website Rumorfix stating, “He did not smuggle drugs into prison. He failed a drug test, I don’t know what drugs he took, but that’s it. He was due to be released today but will now be released on July 19th.” Prison records show that DMX was not exactly a model prisoner with several disciplinary write-ups including drug test failure, disorderly conduct and possession of drugs.

► Driver investigated after 17 pounds of pot found

Mota went to speak with the driver, who said he was there to deal with the lack of a license plate. Mota smelled marijuana inside the vehicle, he said.

Officers found the 17 pounds in large plastic containers and called county narcotics officers to investigate.

The driver indicated he had paperwork for possessing medical marijuana but 17 pounds is well over allowable limits, Mota said.

Mortgage industry employees are still signing documents they haven’t read and using fake signatures more than eight months after big banks and mortgage companies promised to stop the illegal practices that led to a nationwide halt of home foreclosures.

County officials in at least three states say they have received thousands of mortgage documents with questionable signatures since last fall, suggesting that the practices, known collectively as “robo-signing,” remain widespread in the industry.

The Army refuses to release information on its investigation into whether a three-star general conducted psychological operations on members of Congress during their visits to Afghanistan, according to the two Army information operations officers at the center of the controversy. Michael Holmes, the officer who says he refused orders to conduct Psy-Ops on American officials, and Laurel Levine filed a federal FOIA complaint, saying the Army and the U.S. Army Central Command refused to release the records. Holmes and Levine says the Army investigation “also covered allegations of whistleblower retaliation conducted against the plaintiffs for challenging unlawful orders.”

Bad hoodoo from the Jessamine County Fair. Dark times. A champion laid low. On Wednesday, David L. Warner Jr., of Nicholasville, Ky., drove a beaut of a derby in the ultra-competitive small car class. Warner demolished many things on his way to the title. But instead of getting to enjoy his victory, Warner got busted for DUI. The champion had allegedly been pounding Bud Lights before the derby, according to a whole bunch of dirty snitches who ratted him out to the cops.

Human rights lawyers are seeking an arrest warrant against a former CIA legal director who allegedly approved drone attacks in Pakistan that killed hundreds. It’s claimed John Rizzo agreed on a list of people to be targeted by drone strikes – a practice which started in 2004 under the Bush administration. For more on this RT joined by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer.

Julia Sullivan wants to be a cheerleader.

She likes to dance. She wants to get people excited for games. She has friends on the cheerleading squad.

“I just think it would be fun,” the 16-year-old said.

So she’s practiced. Her older sister, a former cheerleader, helped her figure out ways she could cheer from her wheelchair. Julia, who’ll be a junior at Aurora High School this fall, was born without legs and with arms that stop short of her elbows.

This spring, for the third time, she tried out to be a cheerleader. For the third time, she didn’t made the squad.

Last month, she and her parents, Mike and Carolyn Sullivan, asked the Aurora school board to correct what they see as “scoring errors” in her tryout evaluations this spring, saying she was given no accommodation for her disability.

Their attorney cited the Americans With Disabilities Act and other federal laws that prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities.

On June 1, the Taliban raided the Taliban crossed the border from Afghanistan and raided the Shaltalu area of the district of Dir in northwestern Pakistan. This video shows the execution of more than a dozen Pakistani policemen who were captured during the fighting. The Taliban leader gives a speech prior to executing the Pakistani men:

“These are the enemies of Islam who originated from Pakistan. They are the Pakistani police, soldiers and their supporters who recently lined up six kids in Swat and shot them execution style. These Pakistanis are now our captive and we will avenge the death of the children by doing the same to them.”

There has been speculation for months now that the House Republicans’ transportation bill proposal would be terrible for transit, biking, and walking. And sure enough, John Mica didn’t disappoint.

The chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee yesterday released a six-year reauthorization proposal that would slash overall transportation funding 33 percent and eliminate dedicated funds for biking and walking.

That then gave them access across large parts of the News International network, possibly including the archived emails, and to the Sun’s “content management system” (CMS) – which formats news onto pages. That will have included the code for the “breaking news” element of the Sun’s main webpage; changing the entire content on the page would be too obvious.

By including a line of Javascript in the “breaking news” element, the hackers were able to ensure that anyone visiting the Sun’s home page would, as the ticker was automatically refreshed, they would be redirected to anywhere that the hackers chose.

Initially they made it redirect to a fake page they had created at new-times.co.uk/sun which attempted to look and read like a Sun story claiming that Rupert Murdoch had been found dead. That page used a template of another story that first appeared on 14 July, suggesting that the hackers either grabbed an archived story or have had access since then.

☀ Lawmakers Target Lazy Cakes’ ‘Relaxation Brownie’

Brownies that make you sleepy, but don’t contain marijuana, are the focus of proposed bans in Massachusetts and Indiana. Sold at convenience stores and smoke shops, Lazy Cakes get you loaded on melatonin and valerian root.

☀ Bangladeshi Woman Takes Attacker’s Penis To Police

A 40-year-old Bangladeshi woman cut off a man’s penis during an alleged attempted rape and took it to a police station as evidence, police in a remote part of the country said Monday.

The woman, a married mother of three, was attacked Saturday night while she was sleeping in her shanty in Jhalakathi district, some 120 miles south of Dhaka, officers said.

“As he tried to rape her, the lady cut his penis off with a knife. She then wrapped up the penis in a piece of polythene and brought it to the Jhalakathi police station as evidence of the crime,” police chief Abul Khaer said.

☀ Underground Website Lets You Buy Any Drug Imaginable

Making small talk with your pot dealer sucks. Buying cocaine can get you shot. What if you could buy and sell drugs online like books or light bulbs? Now you can: Welcome to Silk Road.

About three weeks ago, the U.S. Postal Service delivered an ordinary envelope to Mark’s door. Inside was a tiny plastic bag containing 10 tabs of LSD. “If you had opened it, unless you were looking for it, you wouldn’t have even noticed,” Mark told us in a phone interview.

Mark, a software developer, had ordered the 100 micrograms of acid through a listing on the online marketplace Silk Road. He found a seller with lots of good feedback who seemed to know what they were talking about, added the acid to his digital shopping cart and hit “check out.” He entered his address and paid the seller 50 Bitcoins — untraceable digital currency — worth around $150. Four days later, the drugs (sent from Canada) arrived at his house.

“It kind of felt like I was in the future,” Mark said.

A new report prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Federal Security Service (FSB) says that former International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was charged and jailed in the US for sex crimes on May 14th after his discovery that all of the gold held in the United States Bullion Depository located at Fort Knox was ‘missing and/or unaccounted’ for.

A high-level international commission has declared the global “war on drugs” to be a failure, and has urged countries to consider legalising certain drugs, including cannabis, in a bid to undermine organised crime.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, in its report released on Thursday, called for a new approach to the current strategy of reducing drug abuse by strictly criminalising drugs and incarcerating users.

It said the new approach should focus on battling the criminal cartels that control the drug trade, rather than targeting drug users.

“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” the report said.

The study urged “experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs”, adding: “This recommendation applies especially to cannabis, but we also encourage other experiments in decriminalisation and legal regulation.”

☀ Teenager sells kidney for ipad2

A teenager in Huaishan, Anhui Province has sold one of his kidneys to buy an iPad2 tablet computer, as reported by SZTV on June 1.

The 17-year-old man surnamed Zheng, a freshman in high school, got connected with a kidney-selling agent through the internet, who pledged to pay him 20,000 yuan ($3,084.45 ) for one of his kidneys.

On April 28 of this year, Zheng went to Chenzhou, Hunan Province to have his kidney removed under the supervision of three so-called middlemen, and received 22,000 yuan ($3,392.97). Then he returned home with a laptop and an iPhone.

Zheng’s mother discovered her son’s new electronic products and forced him to reveal how he came to afford them. Then she took Zheng to Chenzhou and reported the matter to local police. The three agents’ telephones have not been answered since that time.

The UN summit in September marks the 10-year commemoration of the 2001 World Conference Against Racism that was held in the South African city of Durban.

The US and Israel walked out of that meeting over a draft resolution that criticised Israel and equated Zionism with racism.

So yeah. If you embed a YouTube video that turns out to be infringing, and more than 10 people view it because of your link… you could be facing five years in jail. This is, of course, ridiculous, and suggests (yet again) politicians who are regulating a technology they simply do not understand. Should it really be a criminal act to embed a YouTube video, even if you don’t know it was infringing…? This could create a massive chilling effect to the very useful service YouTube provides in letting people embed videos.

The image of a bearded, black-hatted Jew with an evil grin and a bloody blade seems straight out of the annals of classic European anti-Semitism.

In this case, however, it is straight out of the pages of a comic book that landed in the middle of a campaign to outlaw circumcision in San Francisco for males under the age of 18. “Foreskin Man,” featuring a blond, buff hero who battles dark, evil Jewish characters, has added a strange and possibly sinister element to the November initiative campaign, which was already heated.

I have said it’s worse than Chernobyl and I’ll stand by that. There was an enormous amount of radiation given out in the first two to three weeks of the event. And add the wind blowing in-land. It could very well have brought the nation of Japan to its knees. I mean, there is so much contamination that luckily wound up in the Pacific Ocean as compared to across the nation of Japan – it could have cut Japan in half. But now the winds have turned, so they are heading to the south toward Tokyo and now my concern and my advice to friends that if there is a severe aftershock and the Unit 4 building collapses, leave. We are well beyond where any science has ever gone at that point and nuclear fuel lying on the ground and getting hot is not a condition that anyone has ever analyzed.

But French sociologist Antoine Buéno has written a book in which he argues the Smurfs are not as innocent as they seem.

In The Little Blue Book, published in France this week, Mr Buéno said the creatures were racist and antisemitic and part of “a totalitarian utopia, steeped in Stalinism and Nazism”.

Mr Buéno described Papa Smurf as a dictator and said the Smurfs’ long-time foe – the monster Gargamel – was reminiscent of Nazi-era caricatures.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal he said that the original comic strip, named “The Black Smurfs” was racist, because when the creatures fell ill they became black and lost “all traces of intelligence”.